February 25, 2011

Oddly, the name Koch appears 10 times in this Washington Post article. It appears that some lawprof brains are aboil with worries about the nefarious Koch brothers. Kochophobia rages on, and these furious minds seem to imagine themselves overcoming the evil that is Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — as if their "ethics" plan — assuming it could be put in place — couldn't possibly backfire and oust their favorite liberal/swing justice.

The professors said in their letter to the committees that their goal is not to second-guess the activities of any individual judge but to create "mandatory and enforceable rules to protect the integrity of the Supreme Court." An influential British judge declared in the 17th century that "no man may be a judge in his own case," the letter said, but "inexplicably we still allow Supreme Court justices to be the sole judge of themselves on recusal issues."

And what man will be the judge of whether these law professors are truthfully reporting their motives?

Under the ethics code that the lawyers consider their model, approved and regularly updated by the nation's chief appellate judges under the chairmanship of the chief justice, lesser judges are prohibited from accepting travel reimbursements from outside groups if they "give the appearance of influencing the judge" or "otherwise give the appearance of impropriety."

Nan Aron, director of the liberal group Alliance for Justice, said that if these rules were extended to the Supreme Court, none of the justices could attend "overtly political meetings or events" like those sponsored by the Kochs.

And who will be the judge of which meetings and events are overtly political? If they're sponsored by the Kochs, they're political. So far, we know that. Thanks a lot. I love the irony. It's obvious that this proposal is overtly political!

At present, said Ellen Yaroshefsky, director of the Jacob Burns Ethics Center at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, "we have standard-less standards" at the court that she struggles to explain to students.

She said it would be straightforward for the court to appoint an independent body of retired justices or other experts to adjudicate recusal and ethics controversies.

Oh, wonderful! An independent body of retired justices or other experts. Yes, wouldn't it be great to have an independent body of retired justices or other experts decide which Supreme Court Justices got to participate in particular cases?

So... retired Justices Souter, Stevens, and O'Connor might step up to decide who to disqualify in — let's say — the case about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Maybe you think that skews a tad liberal, a tad too anti-Scalia-and-Thomas. Well, first, that's not a bug, it's a feature. And, second, whoever is setting up the "independent body" could always balance it with those "other experts." You know where to get them, don't you? Elite law schools! Begin with the names of those 100 professors who signed that letter to Congress.

It's all so delightfully inbred — isn't it? — in the feverish fantasy life of the Scalia- and Thomas-haters of legal academia.

Love those Koch brothers. They are almost as good at getting up the Left's nose as Sarah Palin. Seeing their name in print is also a good marker for horseshit opinions I can breezily disregard without further mental effort.

REFORM is another name for a shift of power to the reformers. Ethics sounds so blind Justicey, and all. But who appoints the Ethics Judges and how are their powers checked and balanced, and who is the ethics judge of the new judges of Supreme Court ethics? Maybe the best answer is for a large group of orange shirted bullies in the gallery to finger point and chant "Shame" over and over at select Justices during all SCOTUS oral arguments.

At present, said Ellen Yaroshefsky, director of the Jacob Burns Ethics Center at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, "we have standard-less standards" at the court that she struggles to explain to students.

The poor lady is doing it for the children, Althouse, you hopelessly hard hearted fiend.

She's doing it for the children!

How can Ms. Yaroshefsky go to bed at night until the whole system works in a way that she can explain to the children?

Nan Aron, by the way, was at the center of political opposition to Republican judicial nominees who she deems "too conservative" for over a decade. She is a completely political figure, who believes that her side has ethics and her opponents do not.

What's the history here? Marhshall recused himself from Hunter's Lessee because his brother was involved in the case. But according to today's standards, perhaps he ought to have recused himself in Marbury, as he was the Secretary of State who failed to deliver the commission at the end of Adams' term.Are are standards for recusal more strict than they used to be? Has the change been for the better?

The only interesting aspect of this is why the WaPo featured such a non-story, under the by-line of its leading 'investigative journalist' no less. It's not a serious proposal, has no chance of success and is just lefty agit-prop of the most obvious sort from the usual suspects.

If you google the author of the WaPo story (one R. Jeffrey Smith), you get stories like this:

"The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January."

Smith shared a Pulitzer for work on the DeLay/Abramoff scandal, but hasn't seemed to show much interest in investigating Team Obama. No doubt, that's only because there is nothing to see there, so he just moved on.

It's funny how quickly and easily the Koch brothers became the next Haliburton. Almost as if by osmosis it became a known fact in all liberal talking points that the Koch bros. were evil. And it also became a known fact that it was always a known fact and not something they had heard the day before.

Tit for tat.I think the Supremes should devise a Code of Ethics for Congress. Congress has one, but it doesn't seem to be very effective. I also think the Supremes should devise a Code of Ethics for law professors and law schools. A cornerstone of that would be truthful representation of their graduates career prospects.Actually, I'd be just as happy if they reasserted their independence by ignoring all this crap.

Why don't we just get rid of the Supreme Court altogether and put everything to popular referendum? Clearly those 100 lawprofs think the SCOTUS is the Lindsay Lohan of government branches: out of control, unreliable, untrustworthy, but with a good heart and lots of potential if it can just be mellowed out.

The right has made a bogeyman of George Soros for so long, it's refreshing to see the 3X rich Koch Brothers receive a little demonisation.

Our buddy fls has it ass-backwards. (Surprise! In other news, the Pacific Ocean turns out to be wet.) If his side sees nothing wrong with George Soros' involvement in politics, why should we take lefties seriously when they get their panties in a bunch over the Koch brothers?

fls - I can get behind impeaching Earl Warren and getting the US out of the UN. After the Boxing Day Tsunami and the US Navy's response, I thought diverting the annual 'contribution' to the UN could be better spent. We could repair one of our mothballed carriers to turn it into a hospital ship with its own airport and H2O distillation plant. Preposition it at Diego Garcia. Do another and preposition that in the Carribean. Benefits - people in emergencies are actually helped and the US gets some good press. Penalty - harder to keep our enemies close.

This would be funny if it weren't such a sad commentary on the lunacy that most of legal academia has become.

The issue itself, who can regulate the ethics of the Supreme Court, is an interesting and deep question. But rather than devote REAL thought to it, rather than try to use the many benefits of the academic life to study and analyze and contemplate the issues posed both by the underlying problem (quis custodiet ipsos custodes) and by the various potential solutions to the underlying problem, instead all these 100 law professors can do is issue a political polemic that shows no signs of actual intelligent thought whatsoever.

It's depressing, and a clear indication of why so many lawyers today are so poorly trained; these are the people who have been educating them.

Not I. Applied for a job to one of their companies, but wasn't hired. They went instead with better qualified candidates. Bleh.

Heh...I was hired by Cargill out of business school and spent a few years studying the competition at Koch. The funny thing is that Cargill is significantly larger than Koch yet the two families that own it manage to keep their names out of the news.

The Koch obsession by the left is really amusing. The Koch brothers give to PBS, they support gay marriage, the support cutting defense spending and legalizing drugs.

Soros just ruins whole currencies, pushes for the Cloward Piven effect, and supports every left-wing commie store front that rolls off the line. All to support his ultimate goal of power through government shakedown.

I guess most commenters here dont like foreign law but In some countries it work this way:The law establish the causes of recusal, usually the same for any other Judge.If one Justice is recused , the Chief Justice decides. If the CJ is recused the vicepresident of the Court decides. Since you dont have one the one with most seniority can decide.

And more. It's not enough that Congress approves the judges selected. Now, the left wing law profs want Congress to control which individual cases each judge can hear. A tremendous degradation of separation of powers.

For any who are interested, here’s a copy of the letter if anyone wants to know who signed it.

The group that put out the letter, the so-called “Alliance for Justice” is basically an umbrella organization for about 80 other left-wing groups that, among other things, supported the filibustering of President Bush’s judicial nominees on ideological grounds.

It seems to me then that this is little more than a continuation of the political attacks that the AFJ sponsored before.

100 lawprofs ask Congress to curb the powers of a another co-equal branch..

The president of the United States has something called executive privilege.. I would ask these 100 lawprofs what comparable privileges do the supremes have?

Compared to the two other branches, my impression is the Supremes don't have that much power.. and then here comes the idea that they have to check with some extra-constitutional branch before they attend a peaceful assembly.. as if the Supremes ought not to have a first amendment right like everyone else.

We ought to write the congress telling them that 100 lawprofs are under the influence of Charlie Sheen.. or something.

The justification offered for these sorts of rules-- that "one should not be the judge of his own case”--drives me crazy. The "case" referred to is the underlying controversy—absent an actual interest in the outcome of the case, historically even actual bias was not disqualifying for a judge. A judge could be disqualified only for direct pecuniary interest, because one should not be "judge of their own case." "It was Coke who, with reference to cases in which the judge's pocketbook was involved, set the standards for his time in his injunction that 'no man shall be a judge in his own case.'” John P. Frank, “Disqualification of Judges,” 56 Yale L.J. 605, 609 -610 (1947)

Do you know who tells the best lawyer jokes? Lawyers. I firm I worked closely with upon a time gave monthly prizes for the best lawyer jokes. I wish I could remember the good ones. Less interestingly, they had an odd fascination with poems.

Isn't the whole (progressive) point of having people with diverse backgrounds on the court (wise latinas, for example) that they can draw on their personal experiences to make different decisions than old episcopalian men would? If their personal experiences matter, then don't they have a stake in the outcome? Everyone has a conflict of interest. They're all out of order!

If their personal experiences matter, then don't they have a stake in the outcome?

If the Supremes are the creme of la creme, the best we have to offer.. isn't this letter a kind of capitulation, a giving in to the idea that some ideological thought is better, more influential than other?.. and if so why not trust that the liberal kind will prevail?

If liberalism is so wonderful.. I would ask congress to mandate it.. make the judges go on liberal retreats and mingle with other liberals ;)

The Commerce Clause has "been interpreted to apply to regulation of any instruments or instrumentalities or channels of commerce," Kagan said, "but it's also been applied to anything that would substantially affect interstate commerce." Anything? If Kagan already believes that the Commerce Clause justifies anything that substantially affects interstate commerce then she has all but prejudged the individual mandate question.

Please explain why tenure is not seen as a cartel forming engine. One that inhibits inter-state commerce in teaching [legal] services by restricting competition between colleges for professors and instructors?

If there was no tenure then competiton would intensify and salaries would increase. Afterwards, new players would enter the market in response to the rise of compensation. And, then professors' salaries would fall. We would then be better off.

Colleges are engaged in a conspiracy to restrict competition and thereby keep their costs low. Unfortunately, the benefits are not passed on to the law student or to society. Instead the profit margins are maintained or increased.

Before they spout off on the current members of the Black Robe posse--aka Supreme court=-- lets have the legal solons offer their response to Thomas Jefferson's comments re Marbury Vs Madison,Marshall, and "judicial review". Which is to say, the Black Robe posse was arguably never part of the plan of the US -Con

(and those Dinkocrats who believe the courts can do no wrong ...should just join the Scaliapublicans)

I wonder how many of these law professors are acting unethically by signing this letter and identifying themselves as law professors at a particular university?

One signee is from THE Ohio State University. The OSU guidelines on political activity states:

3. When necessary, employees should make clear that their affiliation with the university does not imply university approval or disapproval of the expressed view. Such a disclaimer may be necessary in activities such as:

a. Taking part in a public political meeting or speaking on behalf of a candidate or issue;b. Writing a letter or signing a statement connected to political activity, or when the employee’s name appears on a letterhead supporting a candidate or cause.

The signee identifies himself as being with OSU and no disclaimer is in the letter. I've sent an email to OSU asking for clarification. I wouldn't be surprised if they consider ethics as something more lowly others need to follow. Not themselves.

3:36. The Koch Bros are fairly evil AFAIK, but hardly Exxon-Mobil or BP or Goldman Sachs Evil (not even publicly traded. Ooops, a bit techie for Galthouse). I doubt the Koch bros are that involved---their finance dealings just a small part of their oil empire. Walker/WI GOP is mostly likely following orders from the rightist banks (JP Morgan, etc) tired of losing pension funds to the Demo-backed financiers (Goldman Sachs etc) . Banker wars.

The left is scared to death that ObamaCare will be found unconstitutional.

Well, yes. Of course. What we fear are the bad consequences for the country.

There is no doubt regarding the constitutionality of the ACA. But there is a real danger that the same Olympians who decided Bush v. Gore will apply the same brilliance in the interest of the same partisan ends. Yeah, I fear that too.

In fact, an independent body already exists that, under the Constitution, may review whether Justices are properly recusing themselves from cases in which they have an interest. Congress may impeach, try, convict, and remove Justices who ignore conflicts of interest, which I think most would consider at least a misdemeanor.

Now, the left wing law profs want Congress to control which individual cases each judge can hear.

Actually that's closer to original intent of US-Con, pre-Jud Rev., whether the frat boy right approves or not--the Legislature (ie both HOuse and Senate), not joodiciary, has the final word (and Prez...with veto power. but not kingly power). Yo, US Govt. for Tweekhousers

A group of more than a hundred law professors from across the country has asked Congress to extend an ethical code of conduct to the Supreme Court - for the first time - and clarify when individual justices should step away from specific legal cases.

I'd like to see Congress enact such a law and then see the Supreme Court strike it down.

I think lawyers and law professors are vastly overrepresented in this whole scheme, no insult intended to our hostess. Let's have a panel of non-lawyer citizens review the decisions, to see if we like them.

Better yet, let's put all the decisions on the ballot and vote on them. Nothing is final, until the next general election. Do you think Kelo would get popular approval?

If the standard is to be that "one should not be the judge of his own case,” then I wonder how many of those law professors believe that Justice Thurgood Marshall should have recused himself from all civil rights cases involving African-Americans?

"Since 2000, Koch has pledged and/or donated more than $600 million to the arts, education and medical research, more than he gave to political causes, including stem cell research and PBS.

Koch sure seems to support a lot of leftie causes for a winger.

His brother Bill, who won the '92 America's Cup and fielded the first all woman crew in '95 seems to be in pretty tight with the Dems. Bill Koch joined Ted Kennedy in forming the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

"2010— A land swap involving one of the richest men in the world and a congressman who enjoys hunting on the ranch has stirred up local controversy and riled a national land-exchange watchdog group.

U.S. Rep. John Salazar (D-CO) introduced a bill in April that would give energy magnate Bill Koch just over 1,840 acres (7.4 km2) of Bureau of Land Management land and a 3-acre (12,000 m2) sliver of Forest Service land in Gunnison County for Koch giving the National Park Service 991 acres (4.01 km2) in Dinosaur National Monument and the Curecanti National Recreation Area.

In case you missed it: "Salazar's younger brother, Ken Salazar, is a former United States Senator from Colorado and the current Secretary of the Interior."

Concern is not just Soros but the billionaires behind him. The Democracy Alliance and International Crisis Group are at least as warped as MoveOn or Center for American Destruction or Apollo Alliance. Soros OSI is working in 60 countries attempting to implement the globalist ideology.